Operating Experience of the GT13E2 at Kawasaki Gas Turbine Research Center
The first Kawasaki-ABB GT13E2 gas turbine began operating at Kawasaki Gas Turbine Research Center (KGRC) in Sodegaura city, Japan in January 1994. This facility is a simple-cycle power station and is operated in DSS (Daily Start and Stop) operation mode as a peaking unit, and its output electricity is delivered to Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO). The GT13E2 gas turbine at KGRC was manufactured jointly by Kawasaki Heavy Industries (KHI) and Asea Brown Boveri (ABB). KHI and ABB have a joint test program with this facility to research for high reliability, high performance and low emission for the GT13E2 and future gas turbines. The performance of the KGRC GT13E2 has been monitored continuously. It was found from these monitored data that the thermal efficiency has been maintained at a high level and could be recovered by compressor washing when the compressor was fouled. Several factors which influence NOx emissions were studied on the gas turbine, and it was found that atmospheric humidity has a major influence on NOx emissions. Also other factor such as the position of the variable inlet guide vanes (VIGV) and fuel gas flow through each burner of the combustor were adjusted to reduce NOx emission. As a result, NOx emission from the KGRC GT13E2 has been maintained at a very low level. Reliability, availability and maintainability (RAM) has been evaluated by Operational Reliability Analysis Program (ORAP®) of Strategic Power Systems, Inc. (SPS) in order to identify and improve RAM performance of the GT13E2 at KGRC. These analyses made it clear what kind of outage had an impact on the reliability, availability and starting reliability of the KGRC GT13E2 and appropriate actions have increased the starting reliability. This paper describes operating experiences of the KGRC GT13E2 including performance, emissions and RAM performance.